In data from an account aggregator, households increase consumption when they receive (expected) tax refunds, as if they are liquidity constrained. However, this behavior is not due to liquidity constraints or hand-to-mouth behavior. These same households smooth consumption when making payments...

This paper evaluates theoretical explanations for the propensity of households to increase spending in response to the arrival of predictable, lump-sum payments, using households in the Nielsen Consumer Panel who received 25 million in randomly-distributed stimulus payments. The pattern of...

Using a survey of households in the Nielsen Consumer Panel and the randomized timing of disbursement of the 2008 Economic Stimulus Payments, we find that a household's spending rose by ten percent the week it received a Payment and remained high cumulating to 1.5-3.8 percent of spending over...

This chapter describes a system, called the LEADS system, for providing market participants, regulators, and households with information on the reallocation of resources within, from, and to the household sector in response to macroeconomic events. The household sector is both a propagator of...

The consumption of high-consumption households is more exposed to fluctuations in aggregate consumption and income than that of low-consumption households in the Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey. The exposure to aggregate consumption growth of households in the top 10 percent of the consumption...

We evaluate the consistency of two methods for estimating the effect of an economic policy: i) surveying people to report the change in their behavior caused by the policy, ii) inferring this change using (reported) actual behavior and differences in treatment across people. Both methods have...

We evaluate the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) by comparing the vehicle purchases and disposals of households with eligible "clunkers" to those of households with similar, but ineligible, vehicles. We find that CARS caused roughly 500,000 purchases during the program period and that the...